


Why Do Cats Play With Their Food?

by GalahadWilder



Series: The Half-Reveal Tango [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Is a Little Shit, Adrien is a Certified Idiot(TM), F/M, Identity Reveal, Post Reveal, but at least he's trying, half reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-06-25 16:51:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19749817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: Chat Noir finds out that Ladybug is Marinette, and she's in love with him—but when he goes to tell Ladybug he knows, he panics and tells her he's in love with Marinette. Then, when confronted with Marinette, he can't bring himself to properly confess... and instead tells her he's in love with Ladybug.With the wrong confessions in the right hands, he realizes that he's accidentally set his partner up for the greatest practical joke OF ALL TIME, and he'll never forgive himself if he doesn't see it through. He asks each for advice on how to woo the other... then sits back to watch the disaster unfold.





	1. Chapter 1

Chat Noir may be a dumbass, but he’s a _graceful_ dumbass, anyone in Paris could tell you. He moves like he has absolute control over every muscle in his body, and though he may be flamboyant he rarely wastes a single motion. No matter how far he’s thrown, or how undignified his fall, there’s a good chance he’s going to land on his feet, already springing back up and into a four-legged sprint. He may not be as graceful or acrobatic as his partner, sure, but he’s still an athlete beyond the capabilities of an Olympian. His balance is unassailable, his posture perfect, his—

Most Parisians have not seen Chat Noir outside of very specific circumstances. If they had, they might hold a very different opinion of his athletic abilities.

Chat slams face-first into the second-floor window of the Agreste Mansion, rebounding like a particularly confused bird onto the balcony. He stares at the glass, offended, as if to say _you were supposed to let me through_.

The glass, of course, does not answer. It is glass.

He attempts to roll to his feet, bashes his forehead agains the rail with a muffled curse, stumbles upwards, and staggers toward the window which he’d ACTUALLY left open, which is about three panes to the left of the one he’d thrown himself at. He reaches for it absently, not even realizing his hand hasn’t grabbed it before he leaps, catching his foot on the bottom of the windowpane and sprawling ungracefully into his bedroom, flopping faceup onto the floor.

“Plagg,” he croaks, “claws in.”

A shimmer of green ejects the cat god outwards, flinging him, skittering, across the floor until he thumps against the wall under the bed. “Hey!” he yelps. “Watch it, Kid!”

Adrien doesn’t answer, simply lying on the floor and staring up at the ceiling. He doesn’t blink.

Plagg zips over to him, poking him in the cheek. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

Adrien’s eyelid twitches. “Marinette,” he croaks. “She’s… Marinette.”

Plagg’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says. The encroaching field of green around his sockets seems to make the entire rest of his head grow smaller.

Adrien’s head flops to the side, staring at the base of his computer desk. “I don’t…” he begins. Trails off. “She’s…?”

Plagg settles down onto his stomach, lying down like a loaf of cat. “Try for a complete sentence,” he snarks. “Just one.”

Adrien picks up his head, cranes his neck down to stare at his Kwami. “Plagg,” he says. “Ladybug said—she said she was…” He trails off, blinks. “Her crush. The guy who sits in front of her.”

“Mhmm?”

“That’s—that’s _me_ ,” Adrien says. “ _I_ sit in front of her.”

“Yup.” Plagg holds out one paw and begins to lick it.

“ _I’m_ the guy Ladybug has a crush on.”

“Yup.”

Adrien can’t hold his head up anymore, and it drops back to the floor with a dull _thunk_. “What am I supposed to do?”

Plagg shrugs. “Tell her?”

Adrien’s heart leaps. He could, couldn’t he—he could tell her his name, his identity, confess his love to her with the face she loves, and then dates, and _kissing_ , and—he blinks, squeezes his eyes a few times. Shakes his head. “She… doesn’t want to know,” he says, unable to keep the petulance form his voice.

Plagg grins. “You could always ask her out as Marinette,” he says.

“How, though?” Adrien says. “I don’t… she’s _Marinette_. How am I even supposed to…” He rolls onto his hands, pushing himself upward and back onto his haunches. “She’s so… so _cool_ , Plagg. She’s _incredible_. And I’m just…” He spreads his arms, gestures down at himself. The motion throws off his balance, and before he can do anything he’s on his ass.

Plagg snickers. “You sure are,” he says. Then he reaches out and pats Adrien on the knee. “But you’re also a hero, you know.”

Adrien feels his chest getting warm at the compliment, and smiles for a moment. Then, suddenly, his eyes widen.

“You know…” he says, pressing a finger to the side of his chin. “You’re right. I _am_ a hero.”

Plagg stares at him, then his eyes widen again, and he begins to back up, shaking his head. “No, no, no, no, this is a bad idea,” he says. “Not gonna be part of this, not going to—”

“An entire wheel,” Adrien says. “This weekend.”

Plagg’s eyelid twitches. “I shouldn’t.”

“Two wheels.”

“Alright!” Plagg wails at the ceiling. “We can go visit her.”

Adrien grins. “Why, thank you, Plagg,” he says. “Claws out!”


	2. Chapter 2

Chat Noir is more than a little off his game tonight. He’s not really paying attention to where he puts his feet—he keeps slipping on loose shingles, or catching his toes on pipes and ventilation, and he’s pretty sure he accidentally put his staff through a skylight. Parkouring over rooftops isn’t just about the powers and the suit—you need to pay attention to a thousand different little things, and right now all the brain cells that he usually devotes to that have been overwritten by the way her laugh sparkles in the afternoon sunlight.

There’s a full moon out tonight, but he could swear he’s running blind. If he never sees again, the memory of the blue of her eyes alone—

His foot slips out from under him about a block away from the bakery, and instead of leaping across the boulevard, he finds himself flung into space, hurtling like a meteor toward the streets below. He barely has time to brace before her yo-yo wraps around his waist, yanking him to a stop just below the streetlight. He grunts, smacking bodily against the metal pole.

”Kitty?” she calls from the roof across the way, the one he was trying to jump to. “Are you okay?”

He looks up to call an affirmative, but then his breath is driven from his lungs at the sight of her, a vision in red, arms and legs trembling with strength and the force of holding him up, black hair framed silver by the moon. She’s glowing under the moonlight, his goddess, and for the moment his brains have been turned to undercooked scrambled eggs.

She tilts her head at him in concern. “I’m coming down there,” she calls, and with a flick of her wrist, the yo-yo unspools from his chest, unwrapping from the streetlight and snapping back toward her hand. (He hits the street tailbone-first with a grunt.) She tosses it behind her offhandedly, anchoring it to something he can’t see, then gracefully rappels down the side of the building.

He whimpers, unable to even _think_ about standing. Dear Cat in Heaven, she’s incredible. And to think, just earlier this afternoon she’d tripped over an ice cream cart and nearly gave him a black eye with her flailing—he’d thought it was endearing, if a little frightening, at the time, but _now_... Yeah, he’s screwed.

She slinks up to him, lifting his chin with her fingers, and his heart stutters. “You okay?” she says, snapping the fingers of her other hand in front of his eyes. She holds one up, moves it side to side. “How’s your head?”

”M not... concussed,” he croaks. “Head’s fine.”

”You sure?” she says. “You didn’t hit your head on the way back over?” She turns his head with her fingers, her eyes boring straight into his soul with heavenly concern. “Balance issues can be a sign of a brain injury, and I haven’t seen you take a spill like that... well, _ever_.”

He presses a hand against the lamp pole, climbing it until he’s upright. “I’m fine!” he squeaks. “Just... distracted!”

”Distracted is right,” she says, then after a moment, she throws herself into him, into a hug. “I was _wondering_ why you left patrol so early!” she adds with glee. “You never do that.”

His throat collapses at the contact. “Aww,” he strangles out. “You were worried about me?”

”Always am,” she says, squeezing him extra tight.

He chokes.

She reaches up, stretching, to noogie his head, scraping her knuckles between his ears. “What’s got you so down, little clown?” she says with a grin.

”Not—down,” he protests with a matching goofy smile. “I’m—I’m _up_!”

“That’s great!” she says, releasing him and taking a step back. (He fights the urge to whimper at the loss of contact.) She points upward. “Wanna talk about it on the roof?”

* * *

“So,” she says a minute later, when they've both availed themselves to chairs on a nearby balcony. “Whatcha thinkin’ bout?” Her smile is brighter than he’s seen it in weeks—does his mood really mean this much to her?

”Um...” he says. He’s not really sure how to answer that question. He can’t tell her what’s really on his mind, after all. “I’ve been—” he begins, but then his brain locks up and he just spews the closest approximation to a word that comes to mind: “Marinette!”

Well, _shit_. That is... _super_ not what he meant to say.

A look of horror briefly flashes across her face as he says her name—he knows that look: _Oh god, does he know?_ But just as quickly as the expression is there, it's gone again.

"Marinette?" she says, faking incredulity. " _Multimouse_ Marinette?"

"Yeah, that's her," Chat says, and he sees her muscles sink a bit with relief as she (falsely) realizes that he doesn't know and her identity is safe. "I was on my way to her place, actually." _And I was expecting her to be home already not **out on the rooftops waiting to intercept me**_.

"Really?" Ladybug says. "Why?"

"Uhh..." He had not thought this far ahead. In fact, he's already run far ahead of where his brain was expecting to go—he is _completely_ off the map with this conversation, and when he's caught off guard, Adrien Agreste is a _very bad liar._ "I'm... that's... complicated?"

Ladybug narrows her eyes. "Chaton," she says. "We're not supposed to be visiting civilians. You remember what happened _last_ time you went to that bakery?"

"Okay, but that happened because I turned her down," Chat says. "I'm not doing that this time."

Ladybug turns to look at him, and instantly he knows he's messed up. "You're _what?"_ she hisses.


End file.
